While battery electric vehicles (BEVs) and hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs) have increased in popularity over the years, the length of the time to charge these vehicles can still produce situations of anxiety for owners. For example, a plug-in BEV or HEV that an owner could plug into an outlet in their garage may take over an hour to charge appropriately for the next days travel, as compared to, for example, a few minutes worth of a stop at a local gas station for refueling a gasoline powered vehicle.
Typically, these time constraints will not cause a problem, and may even be more convenient, since they can apply while a user is comfortably within a house, or even sleeping in bed. While the charging can usually occur during such times, the fact that the user is not actually present at the vehicle, to confirm that charge is being added, can result in several potential problems.
In one instance, incidental contact with a power cord can cause a vehicle to become unplugged. This could be caused by, for example, a pet or another person in the garage. Since the contact may be overlooked or unknown, the owner of the vehicle may not discover that the vehicle came unplugged until attempting to start the vehicle the next day.
In another instance, a power outage may result in a no-charge state. If the outage occurred while the owner was awake, at least the owner would have some indication that the vehicle may not be charging (based on the fact that the house has no power). People, however, often become flustered during power outages, and it may not occur to an owner until much later, or the next morning, that the power outage also resulted in a vehicle with no charge.
Additionally or alternatively, the power outage could occur while an owner was asleep. In such a case, the owner may not know about the power outage at all, until awakening to an uncharged vehicle.